


Misunderstandings

by Lady Dae (Daephraelle)



Series: The Vulnerable Man [2]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-28
Updated: 2009-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daephraelle/pseuds/Lady%20Dae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lister gets Rimmer to talk in his own special way. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Terrorform_.

Dave Lister took a deep breath before walking into the Starbug’s cockpit.Things had been tense amongst the crew the last few days but that wasn’t surprising after the recent events on the Psi-moon.Rimmer seemed to be taking it the worst but that was also unsurprising, as he had been told in no uncertain terms that he was about as popular as a slug in a vegetable patch.

Three days of icy silence and no sign of it letting up.That man could ignore for his country.It had become so bad that Lister and the Cat had begun to fight over which of them would take the overnight shift with Rimmer.Kryten seemed to be quite happy to sit in silence with the hologram – it gave him time to darn the innumerable holes in Lister’s socks.But for Lister, the accusatory silence was unnerving and the Cat… well, the Cat just didn’t like    
Rimmer.

Lister had had enough.He had decided that it was time to have it out with Rimmer, even if it ended in a shouting match with lots of childish name calling.So he had told the Cat that he would take the night shift with Rimmer, as long as the moggy promised not to spend all of his free time chasing the mice that lived under Lister’s bunk.With another two days until they reached the Dwarf, Lister thought it was best to clear the air now before    
Rimmer   
had the chance to scuttle off to some obscure part of the mining ship and sulk for weeks on end.

The lights were down low in the cockpit, signifying night as much as one could in the depths of space.Lister could see the dull red gleam of Rimmer’s uniform from where the hologram sat at the navigation console.The hologram was hunched forwards, seemingly engrossed in the images on the navi-screen before him.If Lister had bothered to look more closely, he would have seen the slight tensing of the hologram’s shoulders that signified Rimmer’s awareness of his bunkmate’s presence.

Sitting down in the left pilot’s seat, Lister threw a cursory glance at the controls, pretending to study the ship’s course and speed.

“Not long now before we’re home,” he said.“Holly reckons we only lost a day when she accidentally piloted us through that meteor shower,” Lister swiveled his chair around and leant forward, resting his arms on   
Rimmer’s   
console.“Plus, she says we only lost _sixty-seven_ percent of our air when one of ‘em punched a hole through the galley.That’s twenty percent less than we thought.”

No response from the hologram.

“So… how’re you feeling?You know, after all that mind-twisting, metaphorical smeg.You didn’t say much about what happened before we got to you.”

At this point Lister couldn’t help but remember the image of Rimmer’s form, lashed to the hard stone pillar, his whole body stripped bare apart from a ragged loincloth, draped around his narrow hips.Even with that clear image of Rimmer’s oiled and surprisingly tanned body, real and solid against the unforgiving rock, all Lister could think about was the look of sheer terror that had been on his bunkmate’s face, beyond fear, beyond cowardice, at the point where hope has packed his bags and caught a taxi to the airport and all you can see is your sure and certain end.

He had given up; he had truly given up back there in the lair of his own self-loathing.And then they had come in blasting, refusing to retreat, putting their lives in danger for the sake of his.What ever had happened later, whatever they had faked to get themselves off that moon, that moment had been true, had been real.But Lister doubted that Rimmer remembered that moment.No, he would be savouring the pain of their betrayal, when they had all done what was necessary to restore normality.Rimmer was exceptionally good at remembering the crappy moments.

Still no response from Rimmer.Lister knew it was part of the man’s psyche to let his pain poison his mind.Smeg, they _all_ knew what was in Rimmer’s psyche now.But Lister wasn’t the type who could stand the silent treatment and like it or not, Rimmer was going to talk, even if it was to threaten Lister with a string of indecent acts involving an electric blender.

“Because, you know if that was me, I’d be _majorly_ smegged off.Exposing your deepest, smeggiest neuroses to the whole Universe?That’s got to smart.”

Lister noticed a thinning of Rimmer’s lips and a widening of his nostrils.Excellent, he was getting irritated.

“And then to be humiliated by your own mind… especially one as weasely as yours – it’d be funny if it wasn’t so horribly pathetic.”

The hologram’s clenched fists tightened and then with studied casualness, he relaxed them and leant back in his seat, looking quite pointedly at the fire extinguisher mounted below the Alert screen.

“You should have seen the graveyard.It was just off the Swamp of Despair, lovely spot.Anyway, those gravestones were a laugh I tell yeh.You should have seen how tiny your Charm was, even in death,” Lister smiled.“But the absolute best bit was at the back, the others didn’t see it,” Lister carefully pasted a look of mild curiosity on his face.“Who’d have thought you lost the ability to love at thirteen?”

This seemed to touch a nerve with Rimmer, as his face went a deathly white before erupting in a startling array of reds and purples.

“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” Rimmer’s eyes bugged out of their sockets as he leapt out of his chair like a maniacal red frog.Lister was standing back with an unacceptably smug grin on his face.

“All you ever do is irritate, don’t you?You just sit there and jabber in that bloody chirpy voice with that bloody stupid smirk on your face.You are driving me _insane_!”

Lister smiled.“Well, the plan was to get you to talk but if insanity’s a by product hey, I’ll take it!”

Rimmer stared at Lister with something close to true rage in his eyes.The scouser seemed to sense something was amiss when Rimmer ran at his screaming like a banshee, before passing straight through him and on into the wall, where his light bee recognised the ship’s boundary and halted him.

Lister spun around to see Rimmer staring at his hands.

“Just, don’t talk to me, alright?”Rimmer said quietly.“Leave me alone, I just… just leave me alone.”

With that the hologram wrapped his hands around his body and walked out of the cockpit, towards the sleeping quarters.

 

It was true that Rimmer was a cowardly, shallow pile of smeg but he was a predictable cowardly, shallow pile of smeg.Lister sat down in the navigator’s chair, unable to do more than stare.Only a small crease between his mud brown eyes betrayed the fact that he was thinking.This in itself was a rather historic event but no one was there to witness it and so it passed without fanfare.

Rimmer had tried to attack him.That wasn’t unusual, Rimmer was always trying to throw objects that he couldn’t pick up at Lister whom he couldn’t hit but that had always been after Lister had done something a tad disgusting, like washing his armpits with Rimmer’s chamois cloth.He had never done so just because Lister had _talked_ to him, even when he used his most chirpy and annoying voice, the one that made even Kryten activate the mute function on his ears.And the look that had been on his face before he had charged him like a cheetah with a thistle up its bum, that look had been part searing rage and part melting pain – a lifetime of pain, fuelled by the same thing that had placed that fury in his eyes.

Lister wanted to go after Rimmer, who was almost certainly lying awake in his bunk, eternally below Lister’s.But he had asked Lister to leave him alone.In such a small voice.Lister’s brain was telling him to leave well enough alone.He should wait until Rimmer calmed down and rejoined the crew, pretending nothing had happened.Then he could say something stupid and Rimmer could reply with something cutting and everything would be like before.

Unfortunately David Lister was not in the habit of listening to his brain.He tended to listen to his heart… or his stomach, it depended on how hungry he was.Right now, his heart was telling him to go after Rimmer and be a bit nice to him.Not really nice, just a little bit nice, just enough to make him forget how annoying Lister could be.

Quite amazingly, his stomach was telling him the same thing.That and get an extra-hot mutton vindaloo from the kitchen on the way.

  


The sleeping quarters were pitch black but Lister was sure he could hear the quiet hum of Rimmer’s light bee coming from somewhere within the dark sea of the room.

“Rimmer, you there man?” No answer came from the darkness.Lister stifled a sigh and slowly made his way into the room, madly waving his arms in front of him like a blind man having a seizure.After much swearing and banging of shins, his feet came up against the bunks and he had to throw his hands forward to stop himself from falling into Rimmer’s bunk and presumably into Rimmer.

Finding purchase, he hoisted himself up into his own bunk and lay down, his eyes trying to penetrate the dark and find the ceiling.

This felt right, reassuring even.He and Rimmer had had so many fights, bunk to bunk, it was almost a ritual.

“Listen Rimmer, I’m sorry about before but you know me, I’m always that irritatin’.I was just trying to get you to talk; you know I can’t stand awkward silences.Not unless it’s while I’m goin’ for the World’s Fastest Curry Eater record.”

Someone shifted in Rimmer’s bunk.

“Could you just go, Lister?” The hologram’s voice was uneven.“Just leave me alone like I asked?”

“I thought about it but then I though… nah.”

“Fascinating.Now would you kindly smeg off.” A familiar edge had returned to the hologram’s voice.

Lister smiled in the dark.Facetiousness - worked much quicker than kindness when it came to Arnold Rimmer.

“I would but then I wouldn’t be able to annoy yeh,” Lister’s smile faded as he became serious once again.“But seriously Rimmer, what happened back there… I’m sorry. You see, I said it.I Am Sorry.”

“For what happened back there?”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have goaded you like that.”

There was a pause.

“Back in the cockpit?”

“Yeah, back in the cockpit.No excuse, man.”

“Back in the cockpit, no excuse.Uhuh.” Lister frowned.

“That is why you attacked me isn’t it?All that smeg about the gravestones and love?”

“Love.” The voice was deadpan.

“Yeah.I was just saying that to get you to talk to me.”

Another pause.

“It didn’t happen?”

“Well, we did see the graveyard and it was full of your dead personality traits…”

“But love, the love one… was it there?Did you really see it?”

Was it Lister’s imagination or was there a hint of desperation in Rimmer’s voice?

“Lister?Was it there?Was love there?”

“…No, no it wasn’t there, I was only joshin’.”

A strangled noise from the bunk below Lister’s.

“It was stupid of me to say it.I was just trying to get a rise.”

“Of course.” Rimmer sounded strange, almost relieved - probably happy that such an embarrassing metaphor hadn’t been seen by Lister.

Lister’s heart was telling him to keep on apologising.

“And, I'm sorry about before as well.On the Psi-moon, when we… acted, to get ourselves off that rock.I mean, you obviously knew deep down that we were acting but it’d still feel like crap to be messed around like that.”

“Acting.You mean lying.”

Lister’s brain fought a very brief but extremely vicious war with his heart.His mind screamed, ‘Keep the status quo!’ even as his heart cried, ‘Take this chance, give him hope!’His stomach now seemed content to sit back and digest while it waited for the winner to emerge.

“I… we weren’t lying, we were just… over the top in our praise,” Lister’s brain lay in a quivering heap, his heart standing rampant over its fallen opponent.Strangely, even with his brain in tatters, Lister’s ability to communicate was unaffected.

“We don’t actually _hate_ you… just bits of you.”

“What bits?” Rimmer asked suspiciously.

“Erm, you know - the weasely, cowardly, backstabbing, pompous, arrogant, snivelling, boring, greedy bits.”

“Well, what does that leave?”

Lister’s mind laughed maniacally.‘Answer that one, Jimmy!’ it said, before passing out.

“Well it leaves, erm… it leaves…” Lister’s heart whispered to him.“It leaves you.”

Lister spent the next several seconds metaphysically kicking the smeg out of his heart and wishing he’d said something slightly less stupid.

“Me?”

Lister thought about his stupid statement and decided to run with it.

“Yeah, you.The bloke that’s underneath all that bitterness and neuroses.The real Rimmer, the one that yer parents nearly killed.”

“My parents did their best for me and my brothers and they succeeded… mostly.All my brothers ended up as pilots and officers in the space core.”

Lister couldn’t let that one go.“But didn’t all your brothers suffer psychotic episodes and kill their crews?” Lister though about this for a moment.“Hey, so you do live up to the family standard!”

This thoughtless jab seemed to take a few seconds to register with Rimmer.

“Ha ha, tee hee Lister.None of my brothers were ever posthumously convicted of mass murder,” A short pause.“Neither was I, as a matter of fact.”

Look man, what I’m trying to say is… there’s a guy inside you that isn’t half bad and if you just let ‘im out once in a while you might have more friends… _a_ friend.”

Rimmer scoffed.“You were down on that planet.Did you see anyone like that down there?Anyone who fitted the inner-man bill?No.”

Lister swung his legs out over the bunk and slammed his hands down on the metal moulding.

“ _Nirvana_ saw him! _McGruder_ saw him!Hell, even Kris saw _something_.He was there in Ace, he was there on that frozen moon we were both stuck on,” Lister swung his legs back into his bunk and lay down in disgust.“Smeg, why do I bother?”

“Kochanski?Kristine Kochanski thought I was nice?”

“No,” Lister felt it was best to put an end to that train of though as quickly as possible.“She just told me once that you had so much potential, if you could just re-direct you energies towards something you could achieve.That and stop being such a weasely smegger.Still, after she said that she went on to lecture _me_ about the same thing, so what the smeg did she know?”Lister turned to face the wall and closed his eyes – a rather pointless action in the complete blackness of the sleeping quarters. He began to drift off to sleep; the mutton vindaloo he had downed earlier was making him tired.He wouldn’t have heard the hushed question if a particularly gaseous bubble hadn’t commando crawled its way up his throat and burped its way to freedom, waking Lister in the process.

“Do you see him?”

Smeg, this was all getting too complicated and a ways beyond being a little bit nice.

“Sometimes.Sometimes I see flashes of him, in your eyes or in one of your extremely rare manly gestures.Most of the time all I can see is the annoying, cowardly Arnold J. Rimmer but you have changed over the last few years.You’ve just got to keep changing, that’s all.Learn to accept that loving someone – even yourself - is ok, that it’s not a weakness.”

Lister rubbed his palms over his eyes.Did he really mean that?Did he really believe that Rimmer could be better than the pile of human wreckage he had been on Red Dwarf?Of course he did.Rimmer had already changed, it was just a matter of whether the change would continue and create a man or whether he’d snap and end up as tree-shaggingly crazy as his brothers.

“What about the others?Do they see him?”

“I dunno really.I mean, the Cat can’t see anyone but himself and even then it isn’t a probing insight into his psyche.Kryten… well, you know him, he’s not so good with emotions.I don’t think he could read a terminally depressed lemming.”

“Not for a lack of education.” There was that strange edge in Rimmer’s voice again.Just like before, in the cockpit.Something was still bothering him, obviously.

“What, you mean my lessons?Yeah, well, I stopped them a while ago.Kryten sort of started pickin’ up the skills himself, as much as a Mech can I think.”

“Always trying to fix people, Lister, that’s your problem.”

“Never trying to fix anything, Rimmer.That’s yours.”

“Do you remember Lise Yates?”

Where the smeg did that come from?The Lise Yates incident had been years ago.They’d all had their memories of the doomed experiment erased but after seeing the black box recording, most of the events had come flooding back in a painful tidal wave of recall.

“Yeah, I remember her.Why?”

“That was you trying to fix me.”

“What?”

“It was.I let my guard down, albeit with the help of a crate of holo-wine and I let you see how sad and pathetic I was.All the way down to my bones.So what do you do?You try to fix me.You give me one of your least smeggy memories… as a _present_ and expect everything to be perfect.Well, actions like that have consequences Lister,” A pause.“If you try to help people once, they expect you to try again.”

Now, Dave Lister was not one of the brightest bananas on the banana tree but even he couldn’t miss the subtext that was rapidly becoming text in this conversation.

“You’re saying… what?That I didn’t do enough to help you?”

“Exactly.You fix everyone else, why can’t you fix me?”

“Because it doesn’t work like that Rimmer!You can’t just open a person up, fiddle around with a few wires and get them working as good as new!People have to fix _themselves_ , they have to take a deep look inside their own mind and figure out what it is they’re doing wrong.Smeg, Rimmer, you’re always looking for outside help - hypnotism books, me, the exploits of long-dead generals, aliens, Space Corp Directives…Did that moon teach you nothin’?Have you really come out the other end of this as blind as you were goin’ in? _Stop_ looking for quick answers, _stop_ looking for someone else to blame.For once in your life, man _look inside yourself_!Maybe then you’ll see the flaws that I can’t fix… and the things that _you_ can change.”

With that, Lister slid out of his bunk and slowly felt his way to the door, letting a thin sliver of simulated dawn light into the room before it was sliced off by the closing door.

Rimmer sat in his bunk and thought about sulking.Then a faint but manly voice in his head suggested that it was about time he stepped up to the plate, old boy and took a jolly good look at himself.

So Arnold Rimmer looked inside himself and saw the beginnings of a man…

  



End file.
